


Good Show, Farmboy

by radondoran



Category: Lucky Starr - Isaac Asimov
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Canon Related, F/F, M/M, Mars, Missing Scene, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radondoran/pseuds/radondoran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fight between Griswold and the newcomer, some of the farmboys have a celebration.  A missing scene from the hypothetical <em>Catherine Starr, Space Ranger</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Show, Farmboy

Water was strictly rationed on Mars, and Catherine's shower hadn't been enough to completely strip her shoulder-length brown hair of the Martian dust from the sand-car crash. She was more than ready for a night of sleep, but when she staggered back to her bunk, Maxima was there waiting for her.

"What's the matter?" Catherine asked. "Don't tell me there's to be another attempt on my life."

The little woman stood up from Catherine's bed and grinned broadly. She said cheerfully, "Nothing that exciting, I'm afraid. Come on, into your boots. You're coming with me."

Catherine, all her senses on alert, pulled on the black-and-white hip boots. "What's going on, Maxima?"

"No questions! Just come with me." Maxima rocked on her heels in excitement until Catherine had the boots on, and then took her by the wrist and led her out into the dim residual fluorescents of Martian farm-dome night. "Don't worry about us getting caught," she whispered, perhaps in response to something in Catherine's face. "You've got to look the other way sometimes if you don't want a mutiny on your hands--even Makian knows that. And here we are!"

They had slipped through the door into Bunkhouse A, and Catherine stopped short in surprise. The lights were on; the partitions had been moved out of the way and placed to block the windows, and several of the beds had been haphazardly grouped together into something resembling a circle. The farmboys were sitting in small groups, drinking and laughing. Somebody had a sub-etheric audio receiver out, and Catherine recognized the station as WUSR, out of New York. She felt a small pang of nostalgia; from the dance music they were playing, she guessed that it must be night-time back home too.

At Catherine and Maxima's entrance, a general cheer went up. Someone pressed twin mugs (stolen from the mess hall, Catherine couldn't help but note) of something into their hands, someone else clapped Catherine heartily on the back, and the two women were inexorably drawn into the crowd. A space was cleared for them on one of the beds, and they sat down close together.

Catherine whispered, "What is all this?"

"It's a party, of course!" Maxima replied, still beaming. "For you!"

Catherine's eyebrows knitted. "What--because I killed Griswold?"

"No, you big lug, not because you killed Griswold. Though I can't say any of us here are going to miss him too much. It's because you won at fair fight! You're an honest-to-goodness farmboy now. That's worth a little celebration, don't you think?" She lifted her mug to Catherine and moved to drink, but Catherine stopped her with a gentle yet firm hand.

"Maxima," she whispered, trying not to attract too much attention, "you and I are the only women in here. Don't you think we should be more careful about drinks?"

"What?" Maxima waved a dismissive hand. "Space, you really are a suspicious one! Don't worry yourself. We're among friends. The other farmboys respect me--and if anybody ever doesn't, well, I know how to teach him respect. Isn't that right, boys?"

A few of the nearby men shouted, "That's right!", although they almost certainly had not heard what it was they were agreeing with. It was enough that Mary Maxima Jones wanted their agreement. And that, in itself, was reassuring to Catherine. She lifted her mug to Maxima.

"Of course," Maxima rattled on with a smug smile, "that stuff's made with Martian vodka, and it can be a little strong if you've never had it before…"

Catherine Starr was not a woman to back down from a challenge. She returned Maxima's smile and drained the mug in one go and without flinching, although the taste was sharper than the Earth spirits she'd been used to at the academy.

The men sitting opposite them nodded their admiration, and Maxima whistled. "Not bad, Earthie, not bad!" She drained her own mug. "Think you can keep up with me?"

Catherine could not help casting a skeptical eye down at the Martian woman's hundred-pound frame. "I don't want to get into a drinking contest with you, Maxima."

For the first time that evening, Maxima's smile vanished. "Listen, you," she said, a slight flush dimming her freckles, "if you're thinking you're going to cut me a break just because you're a little taller than me--"

"Take it easy." Maxima's suddenly bunched fist was swallowed up in one of Catherine's long hands. "That's not what I meant at all. It's just--well, why compete? We're friends, aren't we? And you know if you hadn't come out on checkup today, I'd be dead three times over. You've got nothing to prove to me."

Maxima relaxed. "And don't you forget it." She glanced down at Catherine's hand on hers, and hastily pulled her own hand back. "Pass the bottle!" she called to the men sitting two beds over. "Another round for the guest of honor!"

The bottle came, and Maxima filled her and Catherine's mugs. "Gentlemen, I give you Williams!" she shouted, lifting hers.

"Williams!" echoed the men, and Catherine flushed.

Maxima grinned at her. "Don't be shy. You're pretty good for an Earthwoman, Williams. Say, can I call you Mina?"

Catherine was surprised that Maxima, who had heretofore called her nothing but "Williams" or more often "Earthie", even remembered the first name she had given back at the employment office. She suddenly felt a twinge of regret at the deception; she would have liked to hear Maxima Jones call her Catherine--or perhaps Lucky, like the guys had called her at the academy. That had been a good name. Maybe when she was done with Mina Williams, she'd bring it back.

Catherine said, "Yes."

"You know, Mina," said Maxima, her gray eyes meeting Catherine's calm brown ones, "you're the first Earthie to call me friend?"

"Hey, Maxima, quit hogging it!" called a rough baritone from across the room.

Maxima screwed the cap back onto the bottle. "I'm doing it for your own protection, Peters," she called back in her reedy soprano. "Didn't want you boys to overindulge, you know." The quip was answered with general laughter, which continued as Maxima stood up and made as if to toss the liquor in Peters's direction.

Catherine leaned back on one hand and watched the commotion. In many ways, Maxima made a conspicuous figure in the bunkhouse full of men. Her four-foot-ten figure was easily the smallest, and her short hair, which stuck straight up like fence pickets, was of a pale red a shade or two brighter than the Martian topsoil. But her boots, eye-catching as their chartreuse-and-vermilion pattern would have been on Earth, were no more garish than anyone else's. Her overall was in the same style, and just as worn and weathered. She was obviously as strong as anyone in the room, and she seemed to fit into the raucous atmosphere in a way that the Earthborn Councilman of Science still didn't, fair fight or no.

The bottle was wrested from the hands of the laughing Maxima, and she retreated to her seat at Catherine's side.

"You seem pretty popular around here," Catherine remarked.

"Sure! Everybody knows me. And I'd been here over a year before Hennes kicked me out, you know."

"So how did you end up as a farmboy in the first place, anyway?"

Maxima shrugged. "Had to do something, didn't I? A lot of girls are calculators at the observatory, but I was never good with figures… Anyway, I'm good! I'm strong, I'm a good shot, I've got my gravity legs--and if it runs on rockets or electricity or nuclear power, I can operate it. Why shouldn't I be a farmboy?"

"No reason," said Catherine hastily. "You're right, you are good."

Maxima took a long sip of her drink and then leaned back level with Catherine. "What about you, Mina? What's somebody like you doing out on the Martian farms?"

Catherine thought about it. What brought her to the Martian farms was the Council of Science--and what had brought her to the Council of Science was, basically, the same reason Maxima had given. She was _good_. Hector Conway and Gus Henree had given her the best of their knowledge, trained her to equal and even surpass the great Lawrence Starr. She had spent her youth shredding her father's records in the classroom and on the playing field. After all that, she could not have been content to be Earthbound as a teacher or a secretary.

She had been lucky indeed to have Conway and Henree on her side. In addition to her education and training, they had given her the best of opportunities. Henree had encouraged her to apply to the Academy of Science; and as the youngest student, and one of less than thirty women, the threat of Hector Conway had been critical to protecting her from ill treatment.

It wasn't fair, she knew that. She sometimes thought about the other female Councilmen of Science, and about the millions of women on Earth whose lives might have been different indeed with Hector Conway as an adopted father.

Maxima said, "I'm sorry." Catherine had been silent too long, and she had come to the logical conclusion. "Forget I asked. It doesn't matter. Here on the Martian farms, nobody cares what you've done or where you came from, as long as you can do your job--and you don't have to worry about that."

She sat up, punched Catherine's arm affectionately, and quaffed the rest of her drink. "You want another? Of course you do. Hey, Peters!"

Three drinks later, the mood of the party had mellowed significantly. WUSR had moved on to the chill experimental music they played in the wee hours of the morning. The farmboys were still imbued with celebratory spirit, and there was no sign of anyone suggesting that they go to bed--but neither was anyone immune to the effects of the liquor, or the lateness of the hour after a long Martian working day.

Catherine had made two or three summary attempts to retire, but had been held back each time by the farmboys' praise and pleading, and once by Maxima's hand on her sleeve.

Now, Catherine lay back on the bed, hip-boot-clad feet dangling, and listened with a giddy smile to the anecdotes of Maxima beside her. Catherine had found herself unable to share any but the most generic stories without revealing something of her background, and she had tried not to betray too great a knowledge of science. Her attempt at a vivid description of New York Harbor had been dismissed by the patriotic Maxima as so much comet gas, so that at last she had settled for just listening. It was far from unpleasant. Maxima's colorful oratory was engaging, and her tales were a better primer on Martian culture than Catherine had gotten in years of schooling.

"You should have seen his face!" Maxima was saying. "Wait, wait. It looked like this." Her pixyish face contorted into a hideous caricature of fright, and then fell helplessly into laughter again.

Catherine giggled along, perhaps a bit more than the story strictly warranted. Catherine Starr was never completely off guard, and her sharply logical mind analyzed her own sensations. She was more fatigued than intoxicated, she decided, but the end result was the same, and she would not have trusted herself in a duel at that moment.

Fortunately, she was safe here. There would be more peril for her on Mars soon enough, that she knew, but this gathering was not part of that. She could enjoy this moment, enjoy the camaraderie of the farmboys and the company of the woman beside her.

Catherine suspected that biology was catching up with the small Martian; the pink had returned to her cheeks, and her gray eyes sparkled. Her lips, Catherine noticed for the first time, were slightly glossy with petrolatum, probably applied as a salve after the drying influence of the nosepiece in the cold of Martian summer. Half-unconsciously, Catherine licked her own chapped lips.

Maxima had recovered from her fit of merriment, and now she looked at Catherine with mischief in her eyes. She said, "Half a credit for your thoughts."

They had pennies on Mars, as a matter of fact, but perhaps she had altered the expression with regard to Catherine's Earth heritage. Catherine answered honestly: "I was just thinking how nice this is. I haven't had fun like this in a while."

Maxima beamed. "I knew you'd like it. I put the boys up to it, you know."

"Not just the party, Maxima. I mean spending time like this with you."

Maxima flushed more deeply. "You know, Mina," she said impulsively, "I'm glad to be on this cobbered farm again, if it means I get to be with you. I'll be sorry when I get my papers next week."

"We'll see each other again."

"You think so?"

"Certainly we will." Catherine wasn't sure when they had started speaking in an undertone. She glanced up at the men sitting on either side of them, but they were engaged in their own conversation. She and Maxima might as well have been alone in the world. Involuntarily she looked again at the petrolatum-smeared lips.

Maxima moved a little closer on the mattress. She said dreamily, "Hey, Mina?"

Catherine was aware of a quickening in her pulse. She was not a stranger to homosexual desire (as a Councilman of Science, she liked to think of the phenomenon in scientific terms, though she was sure Maxima could have told her what it was called in the Martian vernacular). She knew, of course, that ethically there was nothing wrong with it, but it wasn't talked about in polite society, and she knew that it would probably be frowned upon if her own adolescent intrigue with now-Councilman Harrison came to light.

No; there was nothing wrong with this, except that Catherine Starr was a Councilman of Science, and she had come to Mars undercover on Council business. A party was one thing. A friend was one thing. But to seal an attachment…

Catherine murmured back, "Yes, Maxima?" And closed her eyes.

Somewhere across the room there was a cry of, "Hey, everybody--Williams!" A farmboy had momentarily recovered from the slowdown in celebratory spirit, and was raising another toast.

"Three cheers for Williams!" chimed in a companion of the first voice, and the cheers went up.

Catherine opened her eyes to find Maxima's eyes opening across from hers. The other woman grinned at her, her open face betraying no acknowledgement of what hadn't just happened. She said languidly, "I think they want you to make a speech, Earthie."

"A speech!" Catherine exclaimed. "I can't believe you dragged me into this." She tousled Maxima's hair roughly, and then pushed herself up into a sitting position to make her bows to the assembled company.

 

_Catherine was called to Benson's office early the next day. It had been a long night of celebration, which Catherine could neither avoid nor break away from, and she yawned prodigiously as she stooped to avoid hitting the lintel._


End file.
